predictions

It would be a devastating mistake of executives to believe that their organizations are well prepared for what’s coming; that the shift of their current management thinking is just another phase of a cycle of looking outward and inward, or a natural evolution of industries. 

This past month I consumed a slew of content about customer experience, which has led me to the conclusion that 2016 will be the year of customer experience.

It's that time of the year again... 

Pundits are making their predictions about customer experience, marketing, and more:  what's the next big thing coming in the new year and what should everyone be focusing on. As you know, these predictions are made every year, late in the year and as the calendar rolls over into the new year.

Technology revolutions tend to come in waves. Personal computers. The Internet. Search engines. When path-breaking new ideas first arrive, they set the tech world afire, but mostly bore and confuse everybody else, who go on with their lives much as before, mostly oblivious to the change around them.

It's early January and that means one thing - forecasts for the coming year.

I have this image of the poor sods that have to come up with these insights huddled in a room in late December trying to come up with something interesting to say. Time is running out and they default to rehashing the forecasts from the previous year or the one before that. In this case, the ones from a decade before.

My “brands to watch” post was such a hit last year, I thought I’d share who I will be keeping my eye on in 2014. Some of these brands are sure to grow in the coming year, the future of others is less certain – but I’m pretty sure we’ll be hearing a lot about each of them.

December is often a time for predictions, and the most consistent predictions for social media in 2013 concern data. Whether it’s called big data or social media data, brands are expected to make more use of the opportunities this data holds in the coming year.

The good people at WARC are keen to encourage people to start thinking early about planning themes for 2013 and so have asked me (along with a few other ad bloggers around the world) to put down a few thoughts on the subject. 

Many years ago I worked as a consultant for PA Consultants. A few years after I left and the company was in serious problems (the two are not connected) it employed a new CEO called Jon Moyniham. He pushed and pulled the company around it seems as if it has flourished. Park this fact for a moment.